We all know that in life change is inevitable (except from vending machines). But when you deal with job costing you have to find some way to document those changes. Finally in version 2011 Peachtree has added a change order feature for Premium and Quantum users.
The change order feature is designed to document changes to a job’s estimated revenue, expenses, and ending date. To enter a change order go to the Maintain menu and choose Job Costs then Change Orders.
The Change Order window is divided into three sections and most of the fields are self explanatory.
The first section, Change Order Details, lets you enter a Job ID, change order number, change order date, new projected end date, and notes. The notes field can hold up to 2,000 characters.
The second section is Change Amounts. The layout of this section varies depending on the job. For jobs that do not use phases, there are just three fields: Change Description, Change to Estimated Expenses, and Change To Estimated Revenues. For jobs that use phases, the three fields will be replaced with a grid that has columns for the three previous fields, plus Phase, Cost Code, and Change to Estimated Units. For either type of job, The only the change description and change to estimated expenses will print on the change order.
Last is the Approved section. You can use it to track an internal approval or customer approval, whichever you prefer. After the Approved box has been checked the Approved Date and Approved By fields and the Update Job Estimates button become available. Saving a change order does not change the estimated amounts on a job. You have to click on Update Job Estimates. That provides you the opportunity to print the change order and get approval before the job’s estimate is changed. It is important to note that once a change order has been updated to the job, the change order cannot be edited or deleted. Any changes after that point will require a new change order. The last field in this section is “Applied to Transaction?”. You can use this checkbox to keep track of which change orders have been applied to an invoice. Using this field is optional. Checking it does not create an invoice for this change order. Nor does posting an invoice to the job automatically check this box.
If you want to, you can print or email the change order. It will show the Change Description and Change to Estimated Revenues. The notes do not print by default, but the form can be customized to include them. It also shows the original contract (estimate) amount, the sum of the changes, the new amount, and new end date. At the bottom is a line for authorized signature.
